The Seagulls Have Landed

Just a touch over 43 years ago, my Mother and I took a 6 block stroll from our tiny rent house to the brand new Student Center on the Abilene Christian College campus. We could have stayed home that night in front of our black and white TV but, with the new on-campus facility and something called a "TV Room," we both felt that the occasion called for something provided by a more communal mien. We arrived at what we felt like was an early hour but found the room already crowded, but it wasn't long in a world still friendly, especially on this singular night, that a space was made for a widow and her young son among the college students, some faculty and staff. The air was reverent and quiet, as people that were normally focused on Jesus and God and hymns and prayer were focused on something that was achieved by man and his big, bad brain.

Hours earlier we had already heard the verbal confirmation that something called "Tranquility Base" had been established. What a marvelous sound that had, "Tranquility Base." And for the next few hours, maybe, all over the world people stopped doing evil shit, bad shit, stupid shit while we watched quietly, hanging on every second. Tranquility Base

I guess it was maybe 2 hours after we got there that the cameras were turned on and maybe 30 minutes after that, just before 10 o'clock at night our time, a man named Neil Armstrong climbed down a short ladder and placed a striated footprint in the grey dust and shouted "COCA-COLA!!!" Actually, he said something pathetic like "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Had this happened in 2012 it definitely would've been Coca-Cola or Viagra or somesuch. We walked home a couple of hours of amazing footage later and I laid awake for hours contemplating what we had just seen and what it all meant.

I find it astounding that less than four years later Tom Waits released his first record.

Things seemed to happen so much faster then, though people say that things really happen much faster now. They must be perhaps more significant when you are younger, and now they just slide off you.

Neil Armstrong died a couple of days ago. Coronary occlusions. Same thing that got my dad when I was a little boy of 7. They become dust. Just as will you and I. The dust that will perhaps someday show a footprint.

So here's a Grapefruit Moon for Neil.


Tom Wait's Closing Time is still available so head down to your local independent record emporium and pick it up.